Rowlands Castle 1977

ROWLANDS CASTLE

(All pics 6.7.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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Four lovely shots I managed to take back in 1977 at the neat station at Rowlands Castle in Hampshire. I took the motorbike up from Littlehampton on a hot summer's day, the roads round Rowlands Castle weaving in and out of Hampshire before I got there.

Back in 1977 the Portsmouth Direct Line wasn't that busy, one express and one stopper per hour I think, but I snapped one train passing through. The station looked in pretty much original condition with few if any passengers. I suspect it's a lot busier now, hopefully all the buildings survive.

A piece of luck was the elderly car in the exterior shot making the picture look like it was taken about ten years earlier!

Wivelsfield 1977

WIVELSFIELD

(All pics 4.7.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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A few shots from an oddly quiet Wivelsfield station in July 1977. At this time it was still replete with traditional buildings on both platforms. These black and white shots capture station details nicely and for a change I managed to include a few passengers in the shots!

Wivelsfield is on the Brighton Main Line and in 1977 saw both fast and stopping services from Brighton to Victoria. Trains from Littlehampton to Victoria via Hove and trains from Eastbourne and Ore also passed through, so the lines were quite busy.

Nowadays the stopping service is Brighton to Bedford via Thameslink (2 trains an hour) and Eastbourne/Ore to Victoria (Brighton to Victoria on Sundays) (1 train an hour). The station serves the northern part of Burgess Hill, the village of Wivelsfield is two miles away.

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Betchworth 1977

BETCHWORTH

(All 20.5.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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When I lived in Littlehampton we made regular trips to relatives in Battersea, by car of course. The route was reasonably scenic with a little rail interest - the closed station at Fittleworth (my dad for some reason always went via Fittleworth rather than the main A29), under the bridge at Deepdene with glimpses of the station at Dorking North and the line up to Boxhill on the left, and of course a good few lines as we approached London.

On one trip we were diverted around Dorking as the main road was shut for some reason. I have a very strong image of reaching an old style level crossing and seeing a quaint station on a non-electric line through the darkness. I was hoping the gates would close and a steam train would come through! I also clearly remember Gilbert O'Sullivan's 'Nothing Rhymed' as we crossed it, which dates this to October 1970 or just after, so the steam train was a forlorn hope, five years too late.

A few years later, well into railways and armed with a camera I sought out the mystery station. It was clearly Betchworth on the Reading to Tonbridge cross country line. Little had changed since my previous encounter. I managed to get the above three shots but sadly no trains came through whilst I was there. The line was diesel worked and had a slight air of dereliction. Of course now it's a major route but back then lines were still closing!

Cooksbridge in 1977

COOKSBRIDGE

(All 4.7.1977 Copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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Back in 1977 I was often out on my motorbike visiting the more obscure parts of the railway network in Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset.

A strange little line (to me at least) is the line that runs from Keymer Junction down to Lewes, stopping at Cooksbridge and Plumpton. This was a line I simply wouldn't use living in Littlehampton. It gives a (sort of) direct route from Eastbourne to London (now the Cuckoo Line is closed), but seemed like a bit of a backwater with few trains stopping at the stations outside of rush hour.

This was Cooksbridge in 1977. It still had the old style target nameplates (I can't remember seeing this anywhere else), a signalbox and classic station buildings. I even managed to catch a train coming through whilst I was there ...

Crowborough 1977

CROWBOROUGH

AND

JARVIS BROOK

(All 4.7.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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Back in 1977 Crowborough station was an impressive place, complete with a fine array of Southern Region signage. Services were provided by first generation DEMUs and the whole place was in a bit of a time warp even then!

The station had of course been on a secondary main line until 8 years before these pics, when the Uckfield to Lewes section was inexplicably closed, converting this useful diversionary route into a long branch line, and cutting off the tradd from the south coast. Nearly 50 years later we are STILL trying to get this short 8 mile section reopened!

Haslemere 6.7.1977

HASLEMERE

(All pics 6.7.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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On a warm July afternoon in 1977 I motorbiked up the Portsmouth Direct line, stopping at each station to take pictures. This is Haslemere, a neat station with an extra platform and substantial buildings and canopies. I only caught one train going through sadly!

Haslemere station

Haslemere is a station that from  a small wayside stop has grown into a very busy commuter station over the years. It lies on the Portsmouth Direct line, which was electrified in 1938. The station was opened on 1 January 1859.

It has an excellent service to London Waterloo of four trains an hour, two of them are express services. It is the only station on the Portsmouth Direct line between Guildford and Havant with more than two platforms, platform 3 is used to allow northbound expresses to overtake stopping services.

The station would have become a junction (or will in the future) if the direct line to Midhurst via Fernhurst had opened in the 19th century.

Passenger usage in 2014-15 was 1,785,000 and has been steadily growing year on year.

Sheffield Park 8 July 1977

SHEFFIELD PARK

(All pics 8.7.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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Almost 40 years have passed since I took these photos in July 1977 of the Bluebell Railway. Back then it was an all-steam line just 4 miles long, linking the country station of Sheffield Park to the extraordinary junction station at Horsted Keynes. Remarkably up until 14 years before these pics you could reach the Bluebell via the Southern Region's electrified branch from Haywards Heath to Horsted Keynes. It took the Bluebell another 50 years to reconnect with the network! But the line also owns the trackbed of the Haywards Heath line so at some point in the future the original Bluebell connection will be regained though, sadly, unlikely to be electrically operated! 

So back in 1977 the Bluebell was a very pleasant and self contained set up, with loads of classic steam locomotives and coaches and for those of us brought up in Sussex it was a fairly regular treat to travel on the line. There was hardly a house visible on the entire route and this section really showed the wonderful rural nature of the line. Stations were built on a grand scale for such a rural line, with the earthworks, bridges and tunnels built for double track, which was present between East Grinstead via Horsted Keynes to Haywards Heath. The section south of Horsted Keynes was always single track.

I've always felt that heritage lines tend to freeze time and old pics of them can almost be reproduced today, and that this static element makes them less interesting than network lines. But as time passes that's fading. It's true that the biggest clue to the age of this pics is the array of classic cars in the exterior shot of the station, but fashions etc also date a pic. As of course does the traction used - locos come and go, go out of ticket, become unuseable or get sold on. There is change on heritage lines after all!

Overall of course the Bluebell has changed enormously since the seventies. Freshfield Halt has closed for example, there are new stations at Kingscote and East Grinstead, with West Hoathly always a possibility in the future. The line is no longer all steam, and of course there are now excursions off the network, which bring all sorts of visitors to the line. Facilities have improved both front of house and behind the scenes. The little line has become big business, but you can still savour the lovely Sussex countryside from inside a vintage carriage - and see more of it now on the longer journey!

Bow 1977

BOW

(All 9.6.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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Five years after the Okehampton line closed to passengers I took these photos of Bow station.

I'd travelled on the route in the summer of 1972, just before closure to passengers. At that time the line was still double track and I'd managed to get the seat at the front of the DMU which gave me a view of the line ahead. It was impressively engineered and was clearly a former main line. The trains still stopped then at Bow, as well as the other intermediate stations at North Tawton and Sampford Courtenay. The whole trip up from Exeter had been steeped in Southern Railway heritage, despite the line being by then under the control of the Western Region. I was glad I got to travel on this lovely stretch of line as at the time it perhaps seemed that it was gone for good.

It isn't of course. Passenger trains run again - after a fashion - to Okehampton, at least in the summer. But the big development of course is the inevitability of the line's reopening through to Plymouth, inevitable because with sea level rise accelerating and storms getting worse the fantastic line through Dawlish is under a death sentence, although that may well be an extended one. The effect of storm damage to the coastal route is to effectively cut off much of Devon, including the resorts of Torquay and Paignton, together with Plymouth, plus the whole of Cornwall, from the rail network. This of course happened a couple of years ago, and the economic effects were dreadful. Each year the coastal route becomes more vulnerable and more expensive to keep open. A second route is absolutely essential and most of it of course is still there - the line to Meldon to the north of Dartmoor, and the line from Plymouth up to Bere Alston on the western flank, with reopening a further six miles to Tavistock in the pipeline. The stretch in between, only around 20 miles, is still there waiting for the tracks to be relaid.

Hopefully full use will be made of this asset in the future, with regular express and local services (plus freight of course) making full use of the brillinatly engineered ex-SR route between Plymouth and Exeter, feeding far more traffic on to the Exeter-Salisbury-Waterloo route. Capacity needs to be increased, but it's all possible with redoubling of the Exeter-Salisbury line now under way. And hopefully Bow station, and all the other intermediate stations along the route, also get their trains back. Let's do this properly!

Liphook 1977

LIPHOOK

(All 6.7.1977 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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This intermediate station on the Portsmouth Direct main line was opened on 1 January 1859 and is today served by one stopping train in each direction.

Back in 1977 the station was still in nice condition with buildings intact, services provided by slam door stock. In the 30 minutes or so I was there I managed to get pics of trains in both direction but I think these were non-stoppers. I particularly like the photo of the station exterior, nicely dated (like many of my exteriors are) by a selection of contemporary cars gracing the forecourt.